LaFaive Cited in Wall Street Journal

Michael LaFaive, director of the Center’s Morey Fiscal Policy Initiative, is cited in a Wall Street Journal column today that critiques former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm’s new book and says of her eight years in office that “the roll call of despair is not in dispute.”

“What Ms. Granholm’s state investments were best at producing were press releases claiming thousands upon thousands of jobs — in the future,” LaFaive said, making note of Gov. Granholm’s 2006 quote that people would be “blown away” in five years.

The Journal notes that Gov. Granholm’s economic policy, that “Politicians and their bureaucrats will channel capital better than a market representing tens of millions of individual investor decisions,” can “lead to embarrassment,” and specifically cites the Richard Short situation.

The column, titled “Granholm’s Perfect Bad Example,” includes the fact that Michigan was the only state to experience a net-out migration last decade. “These refugees now include Ms. Granholm herself,” it says. “Apparently her ‘Cool Cities’ initiative — one of her many efforts that was supposed to halt Michigan’s brain drain — wasn’t cool enough.”

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